According to weather departments, the monsoon was below sufficiency this year and the grave consequences of low rainfall have already begun to show up. It is reported that drought like symptoms have started showing up in both rural and urban areas of the peninsular India. Maharashtra's Marathwada and western Maharashtra regions and north interior Karnataka, being the worst sufferers.
While Kharif crop has already been affected, prospects of Rabi crop depend largely on rainfall in September. However, weather experts believe September rainfall will also be meagre. Authorities in Maharasthra having stored water in most dams for drinking purposes, chances are unlike that water will be diverted for irrigation purpose.
Dams in the Pune region hold water up to just about half their capacity , compared with 82% at this time in 2014 and 87% in 2013. The Pune Municipal Corporation has decided to implement a 15% water cut and may restrict supply of drinking water to alternate days.
Latur residents in Maharashtra are in grave distress as their plight of getting water, once in 8 or 15 days may worsen. Ujani dam, the lifeline of Solapur district, has zero live storage as against 72% at this time last year. Similarly, Jayakwadi dam in Aurangabad has just 5% live storage and the administration has made up its mind to use its dead stock, which is usually not exhausted, to meet drinking water requirements. As per the agriculture ministry, about 56% of the net cultivated area of the country is rain-fed, accounting for 44% of food production.
Sugarcane farmers from drought-affected areas are selling cane as fodder instead of waiting for a few more months to sell it to sugar mills. They are getting Rs 2,800 to Rs 3,000 a tonne, compared to Rs 2,000 paid by most mills this year. Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Eknath Khadse has indicated that the state government may not allow sugar mills from drought-affected areas to crush sugarcane in the October September sugar year. A sugar mill of 2,500 tonne per day crushing capacity requires 5 lakh litres of water every day .
Sugar mill owners said since cane availability will be less, very few mills will be able to do crushing next season.
However, a venture started to artificially curate rainfall didn’t yield much result. the artificial rain fall experiment being carried out in Marathwada region has not given much rainfall, even after about 80 flying hours. "There are not enough rain-bearing clouds coming to this region," said a senior official.
In some districts of neighbouring Karnataka, rains were as much as 40% less than what is considered normal. Of the total 171 talukas in Karnataka, the state government has declared drought in 135, almost four times more than last year.
Karnataka has asked for more than Rs 3,000 crore of central assistance, state officials said. According to officials of the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, north interior Karnataka has most of the drought-affected areas.